Bwahahahahaha!NEW YORK (CNN) -- CBS News said Monday it cannot vouch for the authenticity of documents it broadcast on "60 Minutes" casting doubt on the National Guard service of President Bush during the Vietnam era.
In a written statement, CBS said Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, has admitted that he deliberately misled a CBS News producer, "giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."
In the statement, CBS News President Andrew Heyward said his network believed the documents were real but after further reporting cannot establish that they are.
"CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."
Heyward said that an independent review of how the reports were prepared and broadcast will be commissioned by CBS News and the findings of that review will be made public.
Rather: 'We have been misled'
In a separate statement, CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who was the principal reporter on the story, said, "Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers.
"That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where -- if I knew then what I know now -- I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.
"But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.
Oh yeah. But FOX is biased!!1!11! You liberals crack me up.
Kerry supporters: Please get your campaign in order. It's sickening to say, but we at least need a decent showing from Kerry so Bush doesn't get a big head. Right now, a blowout is on the way as it stands.
Bunch of liars! Questionable documents sent from a Kinkos? lol. D E S P A R A T I O N..... BACKFIRE!